Syria

John Baron Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I think that most of us would accept that there are no easy answers to questions of this sort, just a series of hard and difficult decisions. I, for one, believe that Prime Ministers should retain the right—the leeway—to act in extremis, with the use of armed forces if circumstances demand. However, I also think that the Government accept that the reason why we are having this debate, in many respects, is that many of us believe that Government plans for military action should be subject to close scrutiny before being executed, because we have seen a litany of errors regarding our previous interventions, whether in Iraq, Helmand or Libya.

In Syria, our initial proposed policy was to arm the rebels, not realising that therein lay the greater danger. We then excluded the Russians and the Iranians from the diplomatic process. There has also been an inconsistency of objective on our part. One minute we are calling for Assad’s removal; another time we realise that his opponents perhaps represent the greater danger. Only two weeks ago, President Trump suggested that the US would turn away from Syria, and that could only have sent the wrong message to Damascus and Moscow.

Perhaps the international community’s biggest failure has been on humanitarian aid. We can be very proud of our record as a country in providing £2.5 billion since 2012-13. However, given the underfunding of the humanitarian effort in general—that contribution of £2.5 billion dwarfs those of other countries, apart from the US—the Government need to try to do more to encourage the international community to follow our lead and meet its obligations.

While acknowledging the debt that we owe to our armed forces, my concern about the latest missile strike is that our previous engagements in interventions suggest that there is a real danger of being dragged into a bigger conflict. There have been scores of chemical weapons attacks in Syria since this vicious civil war started and I worry about the risk of escalation. Russia has many more troops on the ground. This is a proxy war, as we well know, reflecting regional conflict. There are very few moderates left in Syria. The prospect of more violence, and even heightened violence, is very real indeed.

I believe that a policy is generally better if Parliament does have some oversight. I therefore suggest to the Government that they should focus on the question I posed during our proceedings on the statement and at least give some consideration to the circumstances in which they would think it right to consult Parliament before actually committing our armed forces, and to what they should reflect on in order to avoid the mistakes of the past. The biggest danger is being dragged into this conflict. There is no easy answer. We need to focus on the fact that the humanitarian aid needs to be sorted out, and we need to learn the lessons of the past if we are to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.